Tech rides high in UK's top Google searches of 2011

But Brits mainly baffled by scampi

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What is scampi? That was the second most pressing question on the minds of Brits in 2011 according to Google's annual zeitgeist report, alongside other more serious tech pursuits.

The list of top "what is…?" searches may have been topped by "What is AV?" (the alternative vote rather than audio visual equipment, we believe) but 'What is scampi?' was the baffling second placement.

But it wasn't all delicious fish dishes, tech buzzwords were also being feverishly searched for as the UK tried to discover just what the hell 4D is, what cookies are and what copyright is.

Apple may be disheartened to know that it hasn't done a bang up job of communicating what iCloud is, with 'What is iCloud?' coming in ninth.

Imaginary phones

It's not all bad news for Apple though: the elusive iPhone 5 was the second fastest rising search term overall, with iPad 2 hot on its tail at fifth.

However, the Royal Wedding was the unsurprising big hitter of the fastest rising searches, with FIFA 12 and Groupon rounding out the top five.

The chart of the UK's top searches in 2011 was dominated by big-name websites, however, suggesting that either we're all incredibly lazy or the majority of Brits aren't quite au fait with the address bar just yet.

And the best of it is that the fifth top UK Google search in 2011 was… Google. In 2010 we had that down to sixth. How embarrassing.